The importance of workforce literacy in boosting productivity, profitability and supporting economic growth has been recognised in a $200,000 workplace literacy grant from the Tertiary Education Commission.
Literacy North Otago has been contracted to deliver a programme to improve the literacy, numeracy and communication skills of employees at six businesses.
Literacy North Otago manager Helen Jansen said the programme was a collaboration between local businesses, the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and the Tertiary Education Commission.
A "suitably qualified'' person would be employed to administer and tutor the programme.
Business owners and managers needed to be confident their employees understood the full content of required health and safety courses and that they could comply with the requirements for regular written reports, Ms Jansen said.
Literacy was not just about reading and writing, she said. It was about speaking, listening, problem-solving and critical thinking.
"The employer-led workplace literacy programme is relevant to every business in the country,'' Ms Jansen said.
Already, Ms Jansen is seeking expressions of interest from more local businesses.
"While I can only deal with North Otago companies, I'm more than happy to tell business leaders in other regions about the workplace literacy provider in their area,'' she said.
For staff at Te Pari Products Ltd, the work could be quite repetitive, but if employees had improved confidence in their communication skills, they could have input into those processes and it might be a better way of doing it, the company's production manager Steve Tavendale said.
"We've got 30 staff in the workshop on a production line, so their job might be to cut steel for the day or it might be a simple welding task for two or three days,'' Mr Tavendale said.
"We try and move the guys around the workshop as much as possible but, at the end of the day, the work's got to be done and they work in the areas that they're skilled at ... [but] we know we've got really good staff here and we can't always offer them job training, so the literacy training gives us the ability to offer them some growth and development.''
At McConnell Dowell construction company, employees have a "See-Say-Do'' notebook to record and report hazards, incidents and other risks.
But, Mike Southby, the company's NOIC irrigation project manager, said the system only worked if people engaged with it. He hoped the tutoring would give employees a confidence boost to communicate issues.
"Our people are our most important resource and their safety is our No 1 priority, Mr Southby said.
"By giving them the opportunity to develop their communication skills, they can work more safely, improve their effectiveness and productivity on the job, and, ultimately, feel more satisfied at work.''
As an employer, Mr Southby wanted his staff to develop the skills they needed to do their job and keep safe while they were doing it.
McConnell Dowell already runs a fully-accredited private training school and supports the literacy and numeracy strategy that aims to ensure staff go "Home Without Harm''.
"This collaboration allows us to offer it here on a smaller regional project where we probably otherwise wouldn't be able to offer it, just on the basis of the number of people we employ here,'' he said.
